Remember all those “upgrade your browser now” messages and claims that Opera had one of the worst browser adoption rates? Ever wondered if situation has changed after auto update? Let’s find out.

PingDom took 4 day stats from StatCounter and calculated how many users run the latest browser version.

Statistics
91% of Chrome users run version 7.0.
81% of Firefox users run version 3.6.
77% of Opera users run version 10.6.
71% of Safari users run version 5.0.
60% of Internet Explorer users run version 8.0.
Average: 71%

As you can see from the results above, Google Chrome had the best adoption rate. However, it comes as no surprise, since they do run silent updates in the background.

However, what article fails to mention (and StatCouner gives no data) is the fact that those are just a major version numbers. Therefore, 90% could be using Safari 5.0 while rest of us have updated it to 5.0.2

So here you have it, the latest browser branch adoption rate looks good, while security updates ratio is still a mystery.

Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism career back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.

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Comments (17)

Interesting… Obviously Opera improved from the worst. But Chrome shows that silent updates are good. I think every browser should have feature to do silent updates. After you install browser it should have a check box on whether or not you want it to silently update. It should also be activated by default.

Note that old Opera version didn’t have auto update feature to start with.
Old version of Opera was more stable in users eye.
Old version of Opera is as functional as new version.
Old versions use “less memory”. I think this is a fact.
May be, just maybe they didn’t feel a reason to update.

Also Opera 10.50 update leave them with bad memories and they wish to stay with the version that stable and work good with them.

The obvious missing piece of this puzzle is HOW users install and update their browser. Chrome and Opera is the choice of individuals who chose that particular browser. Firefox is mostly in that category.

But in the corporate world users get browser installations and updates through AD policies, set by the IT department. They do not update aggressively, to say the least…

Chrome has an MSI-package for network installs, but it’s a POS. Just a wrapper around setup.exe. The day Chrome get’s a viable msi-installer we might start to see corporate adoption, but that day we’ll also see a lower percentage of users on the latest version.

in my corpo (you can find us in fortune’ global 50) chrome will not be installed, ever, until they remove their user tracking call-home bonuses.

same with opera – opera has no socks support, cant use ntlm properly so it has no place in corpo networks as it would not work anyway.

it leaves corpo world with IE (obvious choice) or firefox.. end of conspiracy theory

installers do not have much importance here (but yes, i know managed install is easier with proper installer)

btw opera autoupdate is still POS, they change internal data so often, that upgrading from 10 to 10.60 without 10.50 makes your entire opera profile a mess.. funny that both chrome and firefox do not have such issues so it is possible to do it right

I agree that the lack of msi-packages is far from the only reason that Chrome and Opera are not seeing corporate adoption. IE6 only intranets, usage of ActiveX on the Intranet, etc are also factors.

Most sysadmins I know limit the use of any additional browser based on numbers alone. Yet another program to support and update = additional work. So they would be reluctant even if there was a functional MSI-package and easily configured AD-policy pack available.

My main point was not trying to explain why Safari, Chrome and Opera see no adoption in big organizations, but why one can’t compare Chrome’s update rate to browsers that do.

And yes, having software that auto-updates is NOT something sysadmins like. That would have to be turned OFF, in order for Chrome to see big adoption in the managed PC world.

“btw opera autoupdate is still POS, they change internal data so often, that upgrading from 10 to 10.60 without 10.50 makes your entire opera profile a mess..” – Never happened to me. It only happened if I updated a stable to an alpha / beta quality build and then want to update it with the next stable.

This study should also have counted for Beta users. I’m on Firefox 4.0 Beta, higher than the latest officially released version of 3.6. that doesn’t mean I’m not updating my Firefox. Same story for IE9 Beta.